Eclectic
by White as Sin
Summary: Life is eclectic, be it fantasy or not. A collection of Kenyako drabbles and vignettes, showing the good, the bad, and the chaotic.
1. Bento

Eclectic

* * *

A/N: I haven't been good to my Digimon fictions and I've been itching to do some, to be honest. Vignette and Drabble writing is an exercise that's rather therapeutic, especially with this coupling. I see a lot of myself within Miyako and Ken and it's quite intriguing to consider the problems of everyday life from their eyes, away from the Kaiser, away from the Digital World, because they're just kids. I'm just going to keep on writing these until I run out of ideas. It may stop at one, it may stop at one thousand.

Some are funny, some are sad, some are thought provoking, some are silly. Some are like fairy tales; some are like teacup tragedies. That's what life consists of. Life's an eclectic thing, for everyone.

Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon and affiliated characters.

* * *

Bento

* * *

She wished she could be a cook. She wished she could create the scrumptious lunches Sora packed for them all. She wished she could be a master creator of cookies and tempura and sushi. She wished she could present him with a bento that was the best in the history of all bento. He would taste it carefully, picking it up delicately with his white chopsticks, chew delicately. His eyes would widen and he would swallow and he would smile at her. "This is delicious, Miyako-san!" he would say in that adorably polite manner. And she would blush and demur and then scold him for calling her "-san."

That was what she wished as she nervously watched him unwrap the lavender handkerchief on her bento. He had blushed at her offering but had taken it. She pretended to be occupied with her strawberry milk as he looked at her offerings. He picked up a Viennese sausage, laughing a little at the lopsided octopus. She closed her eyes. Oh no… He was chewing. She cracked open her eyes. He swallowed.

"This is delicious, Miyako-san," he said.

"Really? Ano… I'm not much of a cook." She crumpled up a napkin.

"As long as you make food for someone you love, with your heart, it will always be delicious," he said. And smiled.

She laughed and smacked him upside the head. And missed him nudging a few suspicious cloth bundles away with his foot.

* * *

A/N: Miyako strikes me as a woman who's very straightforward yet somewhat self-conscious, torn between being a social paragon and getting what she wants. She also strikes me as one of the unfortunates who really have to work to make food! All in all, it's a complete manga idea. My idea of feeding my boyfriend? Going out for dinner. 


	2. Trinket

Trinket

* * *

There was all that nonsense about giving a necklace or other to your greatest love. The Jewelry stores were particularly shameless about it. All the romance stories were about exchanging some token or other for a happy ending.

She snorted at the thought.

Certainly she never minded the thought of getting a ring, or having one of those romantic scenes of movies and television transcending silver screens to come into her life, but she was a fairly pragmatic girl.

She laughed though, as she fingered the necklace of jade stones around her neck, three rings of green and white pebbles. She laughed as she held the delicate little box that held the jewelry, the enamel and pearl and brass in a pattern of magnolia flowers upon black velvet. And she continued to laugh as his lips touched hers and pearls glittered in his eyes.

* * *

A/N: Ever notice that jewelry of some sort is involved in romance stories? I'm guilty of it, myself. But personally, I prefer real stuff or better yet, sincerity. All the diamond earrings and specially engraved necklaces mean nothing without the sincerity of the person giving it, sincerity that lasts beyond that one magical night of giving and receiving the present. 


	3. Angel Choir

Angel Choir

* * *

Christmas was rather commercial in Japan, thought of as a holiday for enormous parties with friends, rather than the Christian holiday and celebration.

He caught her in the kitchen getting milk, a brief respite in the celebration that bathed his house in the chaos of youth. It had been too long, he knew, since they had such life in the house. A house that sometimes seemed positively enormous for three people now burst at its seams with life that had not been present for years, like a violent, sweeping spring that banished winter instantly. He thought his parents appreciated it.

She whirled when she saw him, her little partner munching on onigiri and an-pan. Her face was flushed as she had been singing to herself, not realizing that he had just come in.

"Sing again, please," he whispered, feeling for a brief, absurd moment that he was a hunter encountering a unicorn, about to step on a dry, crackling twig that would betray him.

She flushed darkly but began again, setting down the milk.

"Twas in the moon of wintertime when all the birds have fled," she sang sweetly. "That God the Lord of all the earth sent angel choirs instead…" He closed his eyes at her voice. It was not Hikari's sweet soprano or Mimi's flamboyant soprano but like beads of gold that strung along a silken thread in his suddenly dizzy brain.

"Before their light the stars grew dim and wandering hunters heard the hymn…" He surprised her by joining in, his own voice hesitant, not at all as rich as hers. She broke off, flushed. It's odd but sometimes, time does go faster, for he didn't recall going across the room to kiss her. All he suddenly felt were her soft lips against his and he realized that she was not just an angel in voice.

* * *

A/N: I had to write a Christmas one. It's Christmas Eve tomorrow and I had to write _something_ or I would have gone mad. Just you wait, I'll come up with a Christmas idea the day after (otherwise known as Boxing Day). The song they sing is an actual hymn, courtesy of a Catholic hymnbook I get music from. 


	4. Fairy Tales

**Title**: Fairy Tales

**Rating**: PG

**Warning(s**): None

**Summary**: Miyako doesn't too highly of morbid romance.

**Word Count**: 201

**Author's Note**: I'm of the opinion that dying for the one you love is overrated and selfish.

* * *

He would die for her. That was the greatest sacrifice, wasn't it? He loved her so much that his life, as worthless as it was, would be what he would give for her. It was a postulate that meant more than anything else to him, something that was present and true in his heart perhaps the first day he met her.

"Ne, Ken-kun… what do you think is the greatest sacrifice of love?" she asked one day, out of the blue.

"Ano- to give up your life for one you love." He blushed when he said it however, not being the deliberately romantic type.

She had frowned, however, looking at him seriously. "Do you think so? I don't think that, Ken-kun."

"Why?" He blinked at her bemusedly.

"Because it's selfish." She snuggled by him, however. "I wouldn't want the one I loved to die and leave me all alone. It's pointless, you know."

"Then- what is the greatest sacrifice of love, Miyako-san?" he asked quietly.

"To live for the one you love because that requires far more strength than to merely die."

And Ken held her close, vowing that he would never put her through that as long as he lived.


	5. Poltergeist

**Title**: Poltergeist  
**Rating**: PG-17  
**Warning(s)**: Sex  
**Summary**: Sometimes Ken loses control, without realizing.  
**Word Count**: 233  
**Author's Note: **I'm convinced that the Kaizer still lives in Ken and will come out from time to time, not unlike the Battousai in Kenshin. Plus, I've read too much Bleach fiction.

* * *

Sometimes, Ken is rough.

Normally he isn't. He treats Miyako-san like precious porcelain, even when they make love. He cried when they first surrendered to deeper urges, at the blood that he did not realize would be so plentiful. It was a wonder she got him to surrender again.

But sometimes, he is rough.

He sometimes bites where he normally kisses. He nibbles where he caresses. He scratches where he strokes. He watches in morbid fascination at the welts he creates, suddenly out of his body and out of his world, watching someone else be ravished, watching some else's fingernails be stained with blood.

He doesn't tell Miyako-san that he liked the blood on the first night, that he felt his veins pulse at the sight and his lust start rising again at the crimson spots on his pale blue sheets. He still likes it, still likes watching her squirm as her pale-tawny skin becomes livid. He blushes, secretly pleased in a malicious, possessive way when she has to wear scarves and gloves and turtlenecks.

She laughs at him sometimes, slapping him playfully if he's too rough with her. Sometimes she whimpers in protest if he starts drawing blood again.

Sometimes he stops, horrified and draws away. Sometimes he laughs and only continues, grinning into the mirror on his wall at a pale echo of a living Emperor who laughs silently with him.


	6. Whiplash

**Title**: Whiplash  
**Rating**: PG-15**  
Warning(s)**: Violence, sex  
**Summary**: A follow up to "Poltergeist." Miyako-san courts the Devil.  
**Word Count**: 629  
**Author's Note: **Miyako, as far as I'm concerned, is a tough cookie.

* * *

Miyako knows quite well that the Kaizer still lives in Ken.

She's not as moronic as she looks, thank you very much. She's also damnably possessive.

That's why she sits before her lover of two years (friends and childhood crushes of four) with a serious look on her face. Ken looks at her, adorably bewildered.

"I want to meet the Kaizer, Ken," she says calmly as you please, as if she were merely dealing with the computer illiterate idiots of everyday.

His reaction is instantaneous. He stumbles backward, face a mask of horror and fear. She gets up, quietly, and goes to him.

"Don't make me do this," he whispers, panic stricken, once more a little boy of eight, than a practically full grown young man of sixteen. He is near mindless with fear. She bends down, looming over him still.

She cups his face in her hand and kisses him. She reaches into the pocket of her dress and silently slides something into his hand. He looks down at the long coil of the whip she has just given him. His hand slowly clenches around it, around the sturdy, metal bound handle that fits so perfectly in his grip.

Something is hardening in his eyes, his fear crystallizing. His eyes are clearer, sharper.

"So." It is only one syllable but instantaneous change is evident. The voice is still breathy, sweet, but imperious and hardened. It caresses like the sharpened legs of a spider, like the ghosting of a razor across the vulnerable skin of the neck.

He stands to face her, gazing at her coolly. She gets up; she would not meet him on her knees.

"You think to challenge me?" he asks lightly, reaching to cup her chin. "Do you know who I am?"

"A petty tyrant," she informs him tartly. "A parasite."

"You dare?" he hisses, hand clenching on her chin. "I am the Kaizer."

"A long dead relic," she says scornfully.

He raises the whip, threateningly. She stands her ground, staring at him defiantly.

"I won't let you take him," she says, softly.

"We are one and the same," he says, arrogantly.

"No," she responds.

"In denying me, he makes me stronger." He laughs, high and cold.

"That is why I am here," she declares.

He stops to consider her. He smiles lecherously. "You cry out under me. You squirm when I draw blood."

That unsettles her but she only narrows her eyes. He laughs again and starts to caress the whip with almost sexual nonchalance.

"Nevertheless, you are not the master," she says softly.

"Why?"

"Because it is Ken who walks this earth."

"Time means nothing."

"It does to the desperate."

"Where will I go then?" he asks her, suddenly. "Is there a Heaven or Hell I am allotted?" He grips the whip's handle tightly, possessively.

"Just go away, and never return," she tells him, soft but unrelenting.

He tips her a mocking bow. "Perhaps I shall. But… when I am gone, I wonder if you will realize that you love me, not him. You always have."

"Go away."

He laughs softly. "I am the strength that props this puppet up, the will that moves his very bones and works the cogs of his brain."

"Go away."

"I am the darkness you secretly love." He loops the whip around her neck and draws her close. "And you will always shudder under me."

He flings her to the ground. Her glasses shatter. She gropes around and hears a thud. She scrabbles over to Ken. She hurls aside the whip, shaking him, squinting to see him in the blurriness that suddenly fills her field of vision. He then embraces her, weeping, and she rocks him back and forth, feeling her heart crumple inside her.

"Go away."


	7. Legality

**Title**: Legality  
**Rating**: PG  
**Warning(s)**: None  
**Summary**: As far as Ken is concerned, those shorts should be considered illegal.  
**Word Count**: 539  
**Author's Note:** I'm pretty sure Ken-kun has a pervy side. Especially if he's friends with Daisuke.

* * *

Miyako-san had long legs. That was a given, as she shot up even more during puberty, enough to rival Sora-san without even playing a single round of soccer. 

But they seemed impossibly long to Ken.

He stifled a whimper as she reached into a high cupboard to get a canister of lemonade powder. A heatwave had decided to strike Odaiba. It was the kind of weather that made the cornerstore lady have a greedy smile as she hiked up the soda and ice cream prices. It was the kind of weather that zapped dragonflies dead in midair. And subsequently, it was the kind of weather that made Miyako-san strip to practically nothing.

At least, that was what Ken thought.

He wasn't a prudish sort of guy. Or particularly naïve (that's what you got when Daisuke was your best friend and got swimsuit magazines from Taichi). However… seeing Miyako-san like _that_. He bit into his lip.

Normally he wasn't like this. Then again, normally Miyako-san didn't wear shorts _that short_! He scolded himself for looking and wondered why he hadn't experienced this the last time the Chosen Children decided to go swimming.

Ah yes, that was when they were all in _elementary school_.

Miyako hadn't looked like temptation itself (or even more stunning than that particular model on page 25 who just happened to have vaguely lilac colored hair and brown eyes…) back when she was a gangly little girl (okay, not so little, because she was taller than him for at least two years until he got his own growth spurt) even in a bikini. Miyako didn't look like she had miles and miles of shapely leg going up and up and up to a rather nicely shaped- Bad Ken! Bad Ken!

He tried to look away as Miyako innocently turned around to face him. "Ne, Ken-kun, do you want anything to eat?" she called.

Fortunately her top wasn't as provocative. At least she wasn't wearing a camisole instead of her faded red t-shirt, a silky, lacy camisole with a ribbon rose- Argh!

"A-a-ah- What is there?"

"Well… let's see…" She turned to look into the refrigerator, bending over slightly. This time, Ken _did_ whimper. "We have melons. Ooh! Iced buns too!"

Ken wanted to sink into the ground and die.

She turned around. "Actually, how about cherries?" She had the ceramic bowl in her hand. "They're fresh!" She plucked one and popped it in her mouth.

Ken watched the ruby red fruit vanish between Miyako's ruby red lips in blank fascination. She blinked at him, before turning to spit out the stone. That gave him a chance to recover from that, and the short t-shirt, and those damnable, damnable shorts.

"Oh dear."

He looked up. Miyako-san was frowning. She had dropped some cherries on the floor. Sighing, she reached for them, bending over right in front of Ken's eyes. She had sunflowers embroidered on those shorts, he thought faintly. Of all things. Oh yes, and they're denim shorts. Nicely tailored shorts.

Ken wasn't too sure on public indecency laws in Japan, but he thought for the sake of men's sanity, shorts like that _had_ to be abolished. For the sake of the blood quietly dripping from his nose.


	8. Forgivable

**Title**: Forgivable

**Rating**: G

**Warning(s)**: None

**Summary**: Some sins are forgivable, as long as one has the appropriate compensation. Character Rant

**Word Count**: 597

**Author's Note: **I'm re-watching Digimon on that glorious site known as YouTube and made the mistake of reading some of the watchers' comments below the screen. This is product of my fury.

* * *

"The problem is, Ken-kun, is that you're too pretty," Miyako said in the middle of the movie.

Ken turned his head to her. "Oh?"

Miyako looked rather irritated to say the least as she pushed the bridge of her glasses further up. "I have to admit that we were fooled by you back in the Kaizer days because you were pretty."

Ken blinked bemusedly at her. "Pretty? An- interesting choice of adjective to use again, Miyako-san."

Miyako pouted. "Precisely. Besides, you _still_ look better in a skirt than I do."

"I doubt that, Miyako-san." Which was true because considering when he lost a bet to Daisuke (a very, very rare occurrence he should have seen coming) and had to subsequently wear a Pink House dress (1), he thought he looked ridiculous, a sentiment only compounded by Daisuke falling off the bed in hysterics. There were consequences to always wearing long pants after all.

"Hikari-chan is too pretty too," Miyako said, but surprisingly without rancor. "She's the frail princess type."

"Ano…" Miyako had a point that time, for the Chosen Child of Light was delicate in stature as well as emitting a fragile aura that instantly aroused the protective instincts of any male within a ten yard radius. It wasn't helped that most of them treated her like a porcelain doll, namely her brother.

"And the pretty ones are always excused," Miyako was continuing, munching on popcorn as though nothing was wrong. "Like that time when Hikari-chan and I first merged in the Digital World."

"Oh?"

"Never mind that Hikari was going crazy, you were getting depressed…" She paused in mid-grab. "I was having hysterics, of course."

Ken nodded. "The Dark Ocean isn't a place that is conducive to sanity," he said quietly.

"Precisely. But I'm can be seen as the villain there," Miyako said briskly. "Because I was slapping the both of you."

"We needed it."

"Not to mention Hikari-chan also slapped me…"

"The important thing is that we made it through, quite frankly," Ken said. "We were only able to do so much…"

"Ah, but there's the rub!" Miyako pointed at nothing in particular. Ken tried not to laugh; she had been reading Shakespeare again (2). "It's understandable that you needed to brood. It's understandable that Hikari-chan would start having hysterics. It's understandable that she would slap me and scold me for going nuts! But it's taboo for me to slap you and her and it's absolutely hilarious if I go crazy, because I was a brat." She paused for breath and said quietly, without much bitterness but a resignation that made Ken ache, "You two are pretty. You two are to be adored. I'm not, in public eye."

Ken pulled her closer, a rare form of aggression for him but he knew she needed it this time. He pulled her to his chest, bending down to whisper in her ear,

"You're not pretty. You are beautiful."

She opened her mouth to speak but he hushed her. "It's not just about prettiness, Miyako-san. To me, you are beautiful and strong but you are also human. And we must all be forgiven for being human, no matter what we look like. We were weak that day, true, but we brought each other up again and became each others' strength. As long as we know this… it is all right. Who cares what anyone else thinks?"

Miyako only snuggled closer with a smile. Ken added, somewhat self-deprecatingly, "I don't look that good in a skirt, Miyako-san. My legs are too white. They look like sticks. _That _is unforgivable."

* * *

(1) Pink House is a fashion brand very popular in Japan, known for making particularly frilly creations for young girls. I don't know where Daisuke got the dress. Probably from his sister.

(2) "Ay, there's the rub" is Elizabethan English for "Ah, there's the problem."


	9. The Garden

**Title**: The Garden

**Rating**: G

**Warning(s)**: None

**Summary**: "Come into the garden, Maud,/ For the black bat, Night, has flown"

**Word Count**: 886

**Author's Note:** Based on some memories I have. Thanks to construction, the site of my first kiss is completely leveled.

"Come into the garden, Maud,

For the black bat, Night, has flown,

Come into the garden, Maud,

I am here at the gate alone;

And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad,

And the musk of the roses blown…"

-Alfred Lord Tennyson

The garden was gone.

It was inevitable, she supposed, as she gazed from her apartment balcony at the overcast gray skies. Japan was a place of industrial steel towers, mirrored buildings that gleamed in the light like the scales of so many dragons, dark and as imposing as the black obelisks she had destroyed in profusion in her junior-high days.

The greenery within Tokyo was transplanted and forced, of parks of trees pruned within inches of their lives, and the profusions of plants and trailing vines in red plastic tubs on steel balconies that made mockeries of forests. But the garden she had been in had been- special.

Certainly it was little more than a glorified patch of barely trimmed grass with some trees that were rather overgrown at the shadowed end of the apartment complex, but it was something. And it was all the more special because of memories.

Playing with Iori there and struggling every year to have flowers thrive and taking him there to cry when his father died. That was where she had spied Takeru stealing a shy kiss from Hikari in their more innocent days, before she went off on her own dreams.

And… She blushed when she thought of this.

The site of her first kiss with Ichijouji Ken.

She couldn't look at it anymore at this point, turning her eyes to the horizon pointedly, instead of at the ground. The green grass was replaced with acid colored tarps only partially covering piles of bricks and rubble. The trees had been long gone, probably sent to a scrap heap, without even the dignity of living on in a craftwork that could perhaps have graced some of the residents' homes.

But a fond smile crossed her lips now as she set her head against her hands in memory. Yes, _that_ kiss… She laughed to herself, the lurching in her stomach fading away.

How simple, how- anticlimactic it had been.

The day had been a sunny one, a pleasant one, almost the antithesis to this particular afternoon. It had been the first time she had taken him to the garden. That year, she and Iori had chipped in some money to get some morning glories, his grandfather having rigged together a makeshift framework for the delicate vines and their trumpets of bright blue and white flowers.

Ken had exclaimed over them, admiring them and touching the frail blossoms with reverent hands, a soft smile playing at his lips. She had paused for a minute to regard him like that, in the sunlight and framed by flowers. It was not the scene for a typical boy, but then again, who would ever consider Ichijouji Ken to be typical?

When he truly smiled, his entire face changed. Something softened about it and glowed with a light that rivaled Hikari's in true warmth and joy. When he felt, he felt strongly, though his face never always showed it. It was always evident in his eyes however, his beautiful Prussian blue eyes.

In her musings she had never realized his gaze was upon her until he had been looking at her for quite some time. Her face had instantly colored and she had babbled on and on about how it was nothing, how it was Hida-jii-san who had done everything, really, and Iori-kun who had been so good to water them for her when she forgot in her flighty days-

Of course, she never admitted to being flighty, not directly to him, as she let out a torrent of meaningless, inconsequential words to such a boy who was looking at her rather intensely at this point. And she froze as she felt something on her cheek.

"If you would pardon me," he had said, quietly, his hand on her cheek. "Would you mind if I give a blossom to someone very special?"

She had nodded, dumbly; who could _ever_ say no to that face?

With deft fingers, he had reached out to the trailing vines, plucked a single, enormous blossom, held it in his hands, twirling it, and reached for her again. She had stared, unable to move or even twitch as he gently slipped the flower behind her ear, so the velvet-paper petals brushed against her cheek.

"Someone very special," he had said and had blushed pink.

She did not remember who kissed whom, who had started it all. But all she knew was that they were leaning toward each other, their lips both were parted in mimicry, and she had felt his soft lips on hers-

She had read too many stories, heard too much gossip of how kisses blew one away, made everything suddenly unimportant and inconsequential. But- she had suddenly become more acute, more acute to him, here, in the garden, surrounded by morning glories as grasshoppers sang and the lazy buzz of bees hovered around them. She had been all the more aware of his lips on hers, the brush of a flower tangled in her hair and brushing against her cheek-

And all of it was gone.

She closed her eyes, feeling the cool rail against her cheek, icy and burning against her skin.

She picked up the phone and dialed a number that was already very familiar.

"Ne, Ken-kun? Our date at the amusement park is still set, right?"


	10. Eternity

**Title**: Eternity

**Rating**: G

**Warning(s**): None

**Summary**: Each day, she holds him a little longer.

**Word Count**: 190

**Author's Note**: This one actually is-GASP-only one-sided Kenyako! This one's inspired by a couple of instances I've had in my life.

Every other Saturday, after school, Ken and Miyako have lunch together. He comes to Odaiba and they go somewhere. Usually it's a small ramen stand but sometimes they have curry or hamburgers. It's just the two of them, no one else; even Daisuke doesn't even know about these twice monthly meetings and he's Ken's best friend, probably will be fore the next few cycles of reincarnation too. They don't have quiet talks; Miyako loves using her "outdoor voice," and even Ken has his limits to his reticence. They talk about everything, from manga and cosplay, to matters relating to the Digital World and philosophy.

They walk along the river but they don't hold hands. They watch the sun go down and he silently walks to her apartment. Outside, they always hug. Miyako mutters something about saying her greetings to Hanako, Ken-kun's demure, quiet, feminine girlfriend, and Ken makes a sound of assent. Every time Ken walks her to her door and embraces her, Miyako holds him just a little longer, in hopes of being able to hold him so long that she will never have to let him go again.


	11. Sweets to the Sweet

**Title**: Sweets to the Sweet

**Rating**: PG

**Warning(s**): None

**Summary**: Miyako has a secret, at 12:35 every month or so.

**Word Count**: 405

**Author's Note**: I went over, I admit it. But the brevity of last time's episode made me want to… beef it up a little. By the way, this one's inspired by the dream-illusion that Miyako has in the last episodes, her deepest desire, which never made sense to me.

* * *

People think that she's a horrible cook, certainly Daisuke taunts her mercilessly at every opportunity, especially when she brings less than perfect egg salad sandwiches and misshapen octopus sausages. She shrieks at any insult to her cooking, matching Mimi-san in decibels easily.

However, there is only one person who knows her secret.

It's not Hikari; it's not even Iori.

Every so often, once in a blue moon, she sends a special email out and receives a terse (but always very polite) response. It's usually those rare afternoons that her parents are both running the store and her siblings have their own business to attend to, so she has the apartment to herself.

She bundles up her long hair (really, she was going to have to get a trim one of these days) and pulls out the aprons from the wash, shaking out the crisp cotton. Each tool waits for her on the kitchen counter, like the array of a surgeon's scalpels. He comes punctually, at 12:35 precisely, as he has been for the last six months.

Usually, he has a plastic bag full of groceries in one hand and always a small wrapped container in the other.

"What is it today, Miyako-san?" he always asks and his face softens in a sweet, slight smile.

Sometimes it's crepes. Sometimes it's mochi. She mercilessly orders him about her kitchen while floating about from bowl to oven to refrigerator, the queen of her own little kingdom. And he always acquiesces to whatever she orders and something in his gaze perceptibly relaxes.

He's not a bad cook himself, having a deftness that shows even when whipping egg whites or kneading dough. Maybe it's his hands, soft and pale and strong, astonishingly delicate for a boy.

After they make and share whatever recipe she's taught him, he opens that little bundle. Inside he always has four pieces of sakura flavored sweets for her. She always insists on sharing. One is for her. One is for Poromon, who usually hovers around the kitchen in anticipation for a taste. One is given to Minomon, who always thanks her with mixture of grave, formal politeness and innocent joy. And she always gives the last one back.

"Because sweets are always sweeter when they're shared," she says with a little smile, and Ichijouji Ken never fails to blush, his deep blue eyes never leaving hers as he takes the last sweet from the box.


	12. Potential

**Title**: Potential

**Rating**: PG-13

**Warning(s**): Mentions of sex

**Summary**: You're a far better person than I will ever be.

**Word Count**: 690

**Author's Note**: Based on a past experience. You can tell that I use past relationships a lot for my writing. I apologize to any past swains I offend. This is also my Christmas present to all of my readers. Cheers!

* * *

It was one of the rare nights they shared together, with no one else. Not even their Digimon. They made love on those nights, as they had made a point of doing every few months ever since she was eighteen and he was seventeen (in an uncharacteristic bit of smugness, he figured that he'd at least lost his virginity before Yamato-senpai and Tai-senpai even got remotely _near_ Sora-senpai). Now they were in college, but still living with parents and family; housing being somewhat limited (especially with the Inoue family budget stretched thin over four children). The chaos of their day to day routines made it difficult to so much as cuddle on the couch and watch television. But they always found some sort of time to have absolute privacy. This time, it was at his house, in his childhood bedroom.

After the lovemaking, when they had cooled down and held each other tangled in the pale blue sheets, they talked idly about whatever came to mind. It was often silly, often random, but it was their routine. Besides, Ken never ceased to be amused by Miyako's chatter about cakes and anime and her newest programming assignment.

Speaking of which, she was talking about her college studies and how they bored her. "I can't find anything that suits me," she said in exasperation. "I like computers. I like them quite a bit. But it doesn't seem worth it." She let out a growl of weariness. "I'll end up working at my parent's shop until the day that I die. Then what have I made of myself? At least you're going to be a detective, Ken-kun. You'll end up doing something that helps people. All I'd be doing is heating up bentos and yelling at the pervert ogling the pantyhose in the back."

"People need warmed bentos, Miyako-san," Ken offered. She snorted her disgust at him and he laughed despite himself. Then he had to duck as she whacked him with a pillow.

"Yeah. As much as they need a detective," she retorted. "I don't know what I'm going to do with my life, Ken-kun." Her voice was filled with exasperation, yes, but also with emotion deeper and sharper than mere annoyance. "I want to help people or do something- something worthwhile in life. Even if it means just having a family of my own."

Ken was silent for a while. Then he said softly, pushing back strands of her lilac hair, "Miyako-san… no matter what you do, you will ultimately be a better person than I will ever be." He meant every word of it but she already knew that.

Her response startled him. "You break my heart when you say that," Miyako said quietly. She stared up at him with her wide amber-brown eyes with an expression that made him feel lower than a worm (no offense to his partner). It was worse than her eardrum-shattering shrieking, than one of her famous punches to the arm or skull.

"But it's true," he whispered. "It's very true."

Miyako then touched his lips, quieting him. "Ken." There, she used his name, that intimate gesture that thrilled and frightened him at the same time. "You are a good person. Yes, you have made mistakes in the past… but how can you move on if you never forgive yourself?"

He would have turned away from her because he knew that he didn't deserve forgiveness. He didn't deserve her. But he wanted her, all of her, because she could do no worse than him. But at the same time… he could do no better than her.

Suddenly, he grasped her hands, determined. "Miyako-san… some day, I will be just enough worthy of you," he said, finding a sudden fierceness that would have made Daisuke proud. "Just… wait for me. Wait for me until I'm better than I am now."

Her eyes softened for him and him only. "Ken. I will wait forever for you," she said simply. "Even though you are already worthy enough now." And she kissed him so softly he almost believed her. And it was the most wonderful feeling in the world.


	13. White Room at the End of the Hall

**Title**: White Room at the End of the Hall

**Rating**: PG

**Warning(s**): General spoilers for episode 50

**Summary**: He hated white. He hated waiting, loathed this feeling of helplessness

**Word Count**: 756

**Author's Note**: This is an old story. I hesitated publishing this one because of its length and because it's something of a dusty piece. But I think it's worth uploading now, just a little.

* * *

He hated white rooms. It brought back bad memories for him always. He hated waiting, loathed this feeling of helplessness. His dark eyes stared into the sterile white tile linoleum beneath his feet; he curled his pale fingers into his hair.

The sound of scuffling made his head instantly go up. A tired looking man came into the room, gathering an enormous tan trenchcoat around his tall frame and shaking back a mane of dark hair.

He stared at the newcomer for a moment. Though the man could not have been more than twenty-five, he looked far older, though his face was relatively unlined. It was something about the eyes, something rather unsettling. This man had stared into the horrors of the world, all the while going through with the burdens and toils of every day. But a pleasant, soft smile rested in those eyes.

The man took a seat next to him, sitting down with a sigh. There was an uncanny grace to the movements, almost elegant in the conserved, precise motions.

"Are you all right?"

He suddenly blinked, caught off guard by the breaking of the silence.

The man had finally spoken. His voice was pleasant, slightly hoarse but rich in sound, with something rather sweet about it. It was a voice that spoke eloquently, without having to shout.

He averted his eyes. "Yeah. I- suppose."

The man looked around. "I never liked white so much. Neither does my wife. It's nothing but lilac and red for her in our apartment." He laughed softly. "And yellow and blue. Anything but white."

"I hate it." He surprised himself with his own vehemence.

The man arched an elegant brow. "Well then."

"I hate hospitals."

"Ah…" The man nodded. "Understandable, even if they do help you, or at least try."

"I hate them."

"If I may ask why?"

"My brother died. Six years ago."

"I'm sorry."

He was blinking back tears. "It- was all my fault. He was crossing a street- a car- it hit him-"

A soft hand touched his shoulder. "I'm sorry. I lost my brother too."

Tears continued to trickle down his face. "Now- it's-it's all my fault- my girlfriend's- she- she- it was an accident-"

"Shh…" A soft handkerchief was gently pressed into his hand, thankfully not white. "Is she going to be all right?"

"They- they say she's stable. She just won't wake up. Oh Kami-sama- It's all my fault."

"Don't say that." The quiet, reasonable but no less compassionate voice of the man sitting next to him said gently. "As you said, it was an accident."

"But-"

"No buts." The man's voice was firm. "These things- happen, I can tell you that." The man leaned back in his seat slightly. "They do happen. We can't do anything about it." His eyes closed slightly. "But we go on. Because life goes on. We cannot atone for anything, if we must, by saying it was our fault. That does nothing." The man's eyes opened again and looked at him, Prussian blue and arresting in their depths, as sorrow and pain and joy and quiet resignation melded into a wiser man, who, despite weariness, went on with his path.

The man smiled softly. "My wife is having our first child right now. It's been a difficult birth. And I haven't been able to be with her as often as I should. I regret it; we all have regrets. But- we just do what we have to do."

A nurse stepped into the room, looking at them both. "Ichijouji-san?" she asked carefully.

The man looked up, blinking placidly. "Yes?"

"Your wife has had a healthy baby girl."

Suddenly, he saw the man's face change. Emotions flickered across it, sorrow and fear and astonishment but slowly, like fire starting to blaze as it caught the corner of a paper, joy started to cross his face, and stay there, burning. He instantly stood up, going to the nurse. "Please, take me to her," the man said, eyes bright.

The nurse smiled and left the room room. The odd man-Ichijouji-san-paused in the doorway to look at him. "We can only live as we will," he said with a soft, sweet smile. "With the joys and the sorrows. What's your name?"

"Ken," the boy said.

"Mine as well." He smiled a little wider. "Well, Ken, keep hope. It's all we have. That- and love."

And with that, Ken Ichijouji was gone.

The boy looked at the doorway, at the hallway of white linoleum. And he smiled, ever so slightly.


End file.
